Would you send an intern, alone, to your industry’s most important event?

Would you allow an outsourced contractor to get on the phone, 1:1, with a promising prospect?

We don’t need one more thing to do, but…

As a marketer with a specialty in social media best practices, I’ve come across many businesses who tell me they’d like to have their networks set up and managed by someone else so that they don’t have to think about it. This is so understandable. Most business owners and employees are more exhausted today by their jobs than at any other time in recent history.

But according to a recent article in the LA Times, small businesses are still starting up and even succeeding because they’re focused on “working harder to build relationships that fuel sales.”

You can’t outsource a relationship.

Outsourcing social media is just a bad idea. People out there in the “socialsphere” logically assume that when your company name is on it, someone from your company is behind it. Realizing this, you might seek to control what the intern/contractor does by giving them approved messaging – which is the equivalent of ad copy, which has no place in social media.  Hired guns don’t have the expertise to answer your prospects’ questions. There is no substitute for a real, dedicated, knowledgable employee when it comes to relationship building with clients and prospects.

What about Brand Evangelists?

You might get lucky and find a consultant with vast experience in your industry. There are some who look to hire a “brand evangelist.” This is a very special kind of relationship between a brand and a consultant that involves a great deal of access and trust. But most small businesses I’ve come across aren’t looking for such heavy involvement.

What is a social media consultant good for then?

One of the things we do that can save you loads of time is keep up with all of the latest, most excruciating details about what works best. We sit on long webinars learning about where to put keywords in LinkedIn profiles. We eat this stuff up. A good consultant will help you set up your profiles, then teach you the importance of learning to use them yourself. Unless you’re looking to hire someone to be your official brand evangelist, the person you hire to help set up your social media presence should be, first and foremost, a good teacher.

Remember this game? It’s time to play!

Which of these pictures represents something completely different from all of the others?

If you chose LinkedIn as the one that does NOT fit in, you’re right!

There seems to be a lot of confusion out there about how to use social networking to promote business. But before we can even talk about that, it’s important to be very clear about what social media is not.

Social Networking Sites Are Not Ad Space

You’ve worked hard on (or paid well for) your marketing copy. Maybe you use it in ads, postcards, yellow page ads, pay per click and e-mail blasts. But social media will never fit into the category of places for you to distribute well-crafted marketing messages.

It’s tempting to see status updates as a wonderful place to display your marketing messages. Lots of people do. But just because someone else runs the social media aspect of their marketing campaign off of a cliff doesn’t mean you have to.

Social Networking IS A Virtual Version Of A Face-To-Face Interaction

Imagine yourself in a room with your customers and prospects. What do you talk about? Do you spout memorized marketing copy to them? Probably not. In this room, you’re essentially doing PR, customer service and lead nurture marketing all in one. In a business environment, that’s what social media can be used for at its best.

Examples Of Human-Sounding Status Updates

You can be human and promote your business at the same time. Remember, if they have any relationship with you at all, they already know what you do. They’ve probably seen your postcards. Here’s your chance to show that you’re forward-thinking, considerate and an upstanding member of your community. Here are a few ideas to get you started thinking in a new direction:

• If you’re B2B and serve a particular kind of business, tap into their industry news and share interesting articles with a short comment about why you think they’d like to read it.
• If you’re attending an event or reading a book that’s provided you with new insights on a problem you solve for clients, share short tidbits of that knowledge to let them know they’re always on your mind.
• If you have a store front, check the local paper. Touch your customers’ sense of community spirit by giving kudos to a local hero or charity.
• Give advanced notice about a new product coming in.
• Offer up unsolicited solutions to every-day problems. For instance, if you sell technology-related services, send them info on local charities that help recycle old monitors and printers.